The Chronicles of Plumbia, Part II

 The job continues…

The first photo is the one I wanted to put last time, of the bare floor and repaired toilet. The second is the progress we’ve made. We hope to finish laying the tile tonight (but I have a suspiciously suspicious suspicion that we won’t). And yes, the Pokes continue as well.

To save money, instead of renting a tile saw, we purchased a tile-scoring thingamajig and a powerful pair of snips. Of course, the act of “saving money” immediately made a siren go off somewhere, with pilots scrambling for their finger-shaped fighters while a voice over the loudspeaker intones, “Proceed directly to the Poking…Proceed directly to the Poking…” Using this equipment is a serious pain in the aft padding. Besides being time-consuming, little pieces of ceramic are flying everywhere. I literally got poked when a small, pointy fragment (amongst the millions of other small, pointy fragments) landed in such a way that when I stood up, it dug into my foot and caused me to bleed my own blood. It takes a half-hour just to shape one curved tile. Jesus! I’m not swearing, I’m hoping he might be available to help out. Being a former carpenter, he may have spent some time laying tile, and he could just point his finger and make the ceramic crack right along the curve we need. That would be nice.

Well, I’m off to snip some more tile. My hand hurts.

The Chronicles of Plumbia, Part I

The wife and I got the brilliant idea to become handypersons, despite the fact that we don’t know a hammer from another hammer.  Well, OK, maybe we can tell two hammers apart, but that’s because they’re wearing nametags and different colored sweaters.  Anyway, our bathroom floor was becoming discolored, and we were told that the toilet had a small leak, the seepage causing the vinyl to come loose and basically just look ugly.  We really, really didn’t want to spend a heap of money on what isn’t truly a major problem.  I’ve seen dozens of episodes of “Hometime” and “This Old House”, so I figured, “Why not give it a shot?”  Just to make things interesting, we decided to upgrade the old floor, too.

As you may imagine, the Poking has already begun.  The wax replacement seal for the toilet was perhaps the wrong size, but we think it will work.  Of course, we’d originally picked up the right size, changed our minds, and got this one instead.  The second Poke came when I decided it would be interesting to chronicle this pathetically small project.  I went to take a photo of the bathroom (with the newly-repaired toilet and ripped-out flooring and trim), but the camera’s batteries are dead, and I can’t find the replacements, even though they were sitting on the counter as recently as last week.  Sigh.  Let’s just hope this entire project doesn’t turn out to be a Poke in the Eye.

Do you gotta?

There’s this commercial that bugs the daylights out of me.  It’s for a metal detector.  The guy indicates that his wife is proud that he lost 50 pounds of fat and gained 60 pounds of muscle, and he shows off Blackbeard’s gold bullion he dug up on the beach.  What mainly bothers me, for whatever obscure reason, is how the commercial starts.  His first words?  “I’ve gotta tell you…”  Now here are my thoughts on that.

1.  He’s lying.  Does he really “gotta” tell me?  I seriously doubt it.  Besides the fact that those words immediately make me roll my eyes in doubt, it just grates on my nerves that someone feels their personal issues must be told to everyone.  Do your friends immediately call you when their shoes come untied?  Do you feel you must let your mother know that you managed to aim your cooking spray in the right direction on the first try?  Do I go out and insist on telling someone that I’ve discovered a new deodorant with a slightly higher-than-normal percentage of active ingredient that also comes in a wide variety of scents both musky and perfumey?  Well, perhaps that’s a bad example, since that’s how I met my wife.

2.  His life is in danger.  Maybe those beady eyes and that stiff acting indicates that he really does “gotta tell me”.  This would help explain why the man feels he must spread the word on his hobby.  Maybe some guy said, “If you don’t talk about this metal detector, I’m going to have to get medieval on your buttocks.”  Maybe the guy wanted to say, “My life is forfeit if I don’t tell you…”  Maybe that pimple was really the laser sight from a sniping rifle.  Ehhh… it’s plausible.

I like to end with quotes sometimes.  As Shakespeare said, “This commercial suckeths.”  Although given that last word, perhaps that was a quote from Sylvester.  Whoever it was, I’ve gotta tell you, he was right.

Philosophistry

I’ve been trying to figure out how a guy can justify listening to music that… well, frankly is a bit soft for us manly men.  I think the key is interpretation.  I don’t want to get poked just for listening to music that I can’t help but like.  Take, for example, Coldplay.  I like them, God help me.  They sing things like “You and me are floating on a tidal wave…Together.  You and me are drifting into outer space…”  In another song, you hear, “Look up, I look up at night, Planets are moving at the speed of light.”  Wait, what’s that?  Something about space?  Cool!  You guys just threw these songs together so you could toss in references to astronomy, didn’t you, you big nerds.  Sweeeet.  Justified!

Or let’s look at a song by Snow Patrol called “Chasing Cars.”  He sings (if I remember exactly), “If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and forget about the world.”  He goes on to say many romantic and embarassing things to his love.  However, let’s interpret it thus:  here’s a guy who just wants to sit on his butt instead of working hard on things like his job, his chores, and on impressing his girl.  Justified!  Interpretation is the key to justifying that you’re listening to some less-than-macho music.

So, how can someone justify listening to hip-hop, rap, or celebripop (you know, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, stuff like that)?  Well, you can’t.  That stuff is all crap.

How can I help you?

No, really, how can I?  What can I do for you while I’m sitting here typing this, have no idea what your problem is beyond the fact that you said, “I have a problem,” and my work doesn’t involve solving that type of problem?  I mean, I know I’m a genius, but come on!

That’s what actually happened tonight.  Someone called me and said, “I’m trying to connect to the wireless internet, and it won’t recognize me.”  I checked something and told her, “Actually, you could use the internet for free if you use the cable instead of the wireless.”  She replied, “That’s fine, but I’m wondering what the problem is.”  Since she said she would instead use the wired internet connection, I let her know that the wireless is actually operated by T-Mobile and that she could call their support number if she wanted to figure that out.  She huffily answered, “Well, that doesn’t really help me, so thanks a lot.”  Click.

I do wonder why people tend to assume that the person answering the phone knows every answer to every question that might arise in the entire hotel, especially without knowing a single detail.  If I really knew all that, I doubt I’d still be here, answering the phone.  I imagine that, instead, I’d be off, say, ruling my own kingdom in the Pacific with beautiful women to do my bidding, by which I mean they’d raise their hands for me when I go to auctions.

It seems silly when we take this technique to other places.  Do we hail a taxi when our cell phone battery goes dead and ask them to fix it?  Do we call up the governor and get ticked off when he doesn’t know why our toilet is clogged?  Do we approach people in the fruit section of the supermarket and demand that they determine why that stain won’t come off our pants?  Well, maybe that’s a bad example, since that’s how I met my wife.  (And thanks for suggesting I dye the pants to match the stain, dear, as I’d been wanting grape-juice-colored pants but never had the nerve to buy some.)

All I’m asking is that people consider who they’re getting mad at.  (Or, if you’re a snob, “at whom they’re getting mad.”)  You’ve got to figure that anyone whose job is answering the phone is probably mad at you for not solving his problems.  So thanks a lot for your help.  Click.